Acer.] ACERACE.E. 



95 



3. A. campestre, L. Common or Lesser Maple. Leaves small 

 palmately 5-lobed the sinuses mostly acute, lobes without serra- 

 tures the basal pair small short usually undivided, the 3 anterior 

 sinuately subtrifid at the apex, the segments obtuse or slightly 

 pointed entire or subtrifidly sinuate or waved, middle lobe largest 

 narrowing behind to the base, corymbs erect few-flowered downy, 

 wings of the glabrous (?) fruit widely diverging. Br. Fl. p. 82. 

 E. B. t. 304. 



In woods and hedges, most abundantly in every part of the island. Fl. May, 

 June. Fr. August, September, b . 



A tree of considerable beauty, and when left to itself of usually rounded outline, 

 and though naturally of humble growth, sometimes attaining to a respectable size 

 and height With us it is more frequently seen as a robust shrub, constituting a 

 pretty large proportion of the undergrowth of our woods. Branches opposite, 

 straight and spreading horizontally, the older ones often covered with rugged 

 corky wings or ridges. Leaves opposite, smaller than in any other species of the 

 genus except A. Monspessulanum, about as broad as or sometimes rather broader 

 than long, of a somewhat firm dry texture, flat, deep dark green above and gla- 

 brous, much paler and slightly downy beneath with tufts of short hairs in the 

 axils of the main nerves, deeply and palmately 5-lobed, the sinuses mostly acute, 

 at other times obtuse or even rounded, lobes entire (not serrated), the basal pair 

 much the smallest and shortest, divaricate, mostly rounded and undivided or sub- 

 sinuate, the 3 anterior pointing forward, the middle one largest, subtrifidly lobed 

 or sinuate at their apex, the segments usually very obtuse, sometimes a little 

 acute, occasionally again subtrifidly sinuate, at other times the lobes themselves 

 are undivided, the middle lobe (and often the two lateral anterior) is narrowed 

 behind to the base or wedge-shaped. Petioles terete, downy, variable in length, 

 almost connate by their tumid bulb-like bases. Racemes corymbose, erect or 

 somewhat lax, terminal on the young branches and lateral shoots, and from the 

 same buds as the leaves, small, about 1^ to 2 inches long, compound, on subcom- 

 pressed grooved peduncles of variable length, more or less downy. Bracts at the 

 base of the pedicels and branches small, lanceolate, caducous, the upper ones very 

 minute, the lowermost of all occasionally leafy. Flowers rather few, appearing 

 just after the leaves, and before the latter have acquired their proper firmness and 

 colour, small (3 or 4 lines in diameter), herbaceous, on erect or spreading mostly 

 very downy pedicels, of very unequal length. Calyx hairy externally, the seg- 

 ments oblong, rounded, unequal. Petals as long as or rather longer than the 

 calyx, narrowly obovate or spathiilate, attenuated downwards, obtuse. Stamens 

 8, often 9 or 10, standing in sinuses formed by the lobes of the fleshy melliferous 

 disk, sometimes imperfect, much shorter than the calyx and almost concealed by 

 the closing together of the latter and the petals on the germen, when fully deve- 

 loped mostly longer than the perianth and spreading ; filaments subulate, terete, 

 glabrous ; anthers greenish yellow, oblongo-elliptical, mostly a little hairy, some- 

 times glabrous. Germen nearly semiorbioidar, emarginate, much compressed, 

 with a thin sharp border, often abortive. Style tapering ; stigmas 2, revolute. 

 Samarm nodding or pendulous, greenish or reddish, slightly downy, mostly about 

 2 or 2i inches in width between the tips of the horizontally spreading, strongly 

 veined, glabrous wings, whose posterior margin is thickened and more or less 

 recurved, the anterior very thin, rounded and dilated into an oblong, broad and 

 oblique lobe. 



The leaves of the common Maple assume a rich orange- yellow or nearly scarlet 

 hue in decay, and impart a vivid tint to our autumnal woodland scenery. The 

 largest specimen T am acquainted with in the island grows at Nunwell, and when 

 measured in February, 1845, girded 10 feet at 5 feet from the ground, branching 

 into a rounded head of about 30 or 40 feet in height ; there is also a particularly 

 fine specimen at the top of a hilly pasture between Knighton west wood and the 

 road. The finest examples however of the species I have ever seen are in the 



